Halloween at Dick Van Dyke’s House

halloween-at-serra-retreat-5

While doing research on the Strode House from Halloween a couple of weeks back, I came across a blog post about the extravagant yard haunt that actor Dick Van Dyke hosts every Halloween at his home in Malibu.  And while you wouldn’t think it would be possible, being that I have lived in Southern California for well over a decade, have spent countless hours stalking, and am obsessed with all things Halloween and all things celebrity, until reading that post I had never before heard anything about it!  And, let me tell you, I just about had a heart attack a few minutes later when I discovered that Dick Van Dyke lives inside of the gated Serra Retreat community because some of our good friends just (like literally weeks ago!) moved into that very same community!  I immediately texted said friend to ask if she lived near Dick Van Dyke or knew him at all and started hyperventilating when she wrote back that not only are they next-door neighbors, but that the Grim Cheaper and I were welcome to come to his Halloween party!  Talk about fate!  I mean, do these things actually happen???  Days later, as I sit here typing this, I am still in a bit of shock and can’t quite believe that I was actually at Dick Van Dyke’s house for Halloween!  And that right there is why I LOVE L.A. – one simply never knows what unthinkable adventure is waiting just around the corner!  (The GC refused to dress up as Dylan again after already dressing up on Saturday night, which is why I am dressed like a flapper above.  I am now thinking of changing his nickname to the “Grim Grumper”, by the way.  Winking smile)

[ad]

halloween-at-serra-retreat-3 halloween-at-serra-retreat-10

halloween-at-serra-retreat-9 halloween-at-serra-retreat-21

About two seconds after we arrived at our friends’ house on Halloween night, some trick-or-treaters knocked on the door and I just about died when I realized it was none other than James Cameron, dressed as a pirate, and his family!  I kid you not!  I was absolutely DYING inside as he introduced himself to our friends and welcomed them to the neighborhood.  Like really?  As I said above, does this stuff actually happen???  Oh, what I would not give to live in the ‘Bu and have James Cameron trick-or-treat at my door!  HOW INCREDIBLY COOL!  I did not ask James for a photograph as I figured it would have been a bit awkward, but I am kind of kicking myself about it now.  As my girl Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, constantly admonishes me, when an opportunity presents itself, always, always ask for a picture!  Ah well, maybe next Halloween!  Anyway, shortly after James left, we all headed over to Dick Van Dyke’s house and, let me tell you, it was nothing short of AMAZING!  For this Halloween-obsessed stalker, being there was the ultimate experience!

halloween-at-serra-retreat-31 halloween-at-serra-retreat-34

halloween-at-serra-retreat-7 halloween-at-serra-retreat-45

halloween-at-serra-retreat-26 halloween-at-serra-retreat-23

halloween-at-serra-retreat-30 halloween-at-serra-retreat-42

Dick had decorated the entire front of his property – like every single square inch of it – with a myriad of Halloween displays and contraptions and, let me tell you, it was like nothing I had ever seen!  The whole thing was like being in the middle of a horror movie set!  We were there for well over an hour and I still do not think I saw everything.  The spooktacular was comprised of animatronic mannequins, some of which would jump out at people from hidden corners;

halloween-at-serra-retreat-29

a talking statue, a la the talking statues in the graveyard at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion;

halloween-at-serra-retreat-19 halloween-at-serra-retreat-15

halloween-at-serra-retreat-18 halloween-at-serra-retreat-20

a Pee-Wee Herman lookalike who was controlling an animatronic wolf that would jump out to “attack” each passerby;

halloween-at-serra-retreat-4 halloween-at-serra-retreat-6

halloween-at-serra-retreat-8 halloween-at-serra-retreat-12

and a video-rigged front door that had both a picture of Dick Van Dyke that would change from normal to scary depending on where you were standing and a “window” to an insane asylum in which an inmate with an ax tries to break her way out.

You can watch a video of the door by clicking above.  Notice the marks that show up on the door when the inmate hits it with the ax!  Simply incredible!

halloween-at-serra-retreat-36 halloween-at-serra-retreat-40

My favorite part of the whole thing, though, had to be the graveyard, which consisted of a myriad of tombstones, some of which moved and had animatronic corpses coming out of them.  There was also an invisible screen set up at the back of the graveyard on which was projected a video of cartoon skeletons doing the “Thriller” dance!  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!  Sadly, the GC could not get a good picture of the video, nor could he get a photograph of the glow-in-the-dark monster footprints that had been painted in the street out in front of Dick’s house.  AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING!

halloween-at-serra-retreat-11

Because so many celebrities live in Serra Retreat, I was keeping my eyes peeled the entire time we were there and was beyond excited when I spotted Camille Grammer from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  As I have mentioned several times before on this blog, I absolutely LOATHE RHOBH star Kyle Richards (“hot, heaping hunks of hate!” as Jerry Stiller would say), and I don’t much like her sister Kim or their friend Taylor Armstrong, either.  And while I used to like Lisa Vanderpump, after her high-school-like mean-girl behavior in the recently-aired “The Opposite of Relaxation!” episode,  I don’t really care for her either.   The only two on the show that I like are Adrienne Maloof-Nassif and Camille Grammer.  So seeing Camille was especially exciting!

halloween-at-serra-retreat-17

So I, of course, just had to ask her for a pic.  I am very happy to report that Camille was a total sweetheart and even told me that I was beautiful!!!  How nice is that?  And she is absolutely gorgeous in person, far prettier even than she appears to be on TV.  Love her!!  Ironically enough, fellow stalker Chas later told me that Camille had been featured in an interview on TMZ TV on Halloween night in which she was asked what Halloween party she would be attending.  Her response?  “Dick Van Dyke’s and his is the best.”  LOVE IT!

halloween-at-serra-retreat-27

Shortly after I took the pic with Camille, Dick Van Dyke walked outside and I just about died.  I, of course, also asked him for a photo and he happily obliged.  Unfortunately, I did not get to talk to him at all, though, as he was extremely busy and had hoards of neighbors coming up to him, all wanting to say hi.  All in all it was a magical evening and I still cannot quite believe it all happened!  As I said yesterday, between meeting Matthew Lillard on Friday, dressing up as Brenda and Dylan on Saturday, and then spending Halloween night at Dick Van Dyke’s house, this was quite simply the Best. Halloween. Ever.

During the party, I also just had to run around the corner to get my picture taken in front of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline’s former house.  🙂

You can read a great blog post about decorating Dick Van Dyke’s house written by one of his Halloween crew members on the Disney Travel Babble website here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Unfortunately, because Dick Van Dyke lives inside of Serra Retreat, a gated community that is not open to the public, there is no stalking location for this one.

Linda Vista Community Hospital

linda-vista-hospital-2

Way back in August, in preparation for my Haunted Hollywood postings, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to a spot that is, hands down, the spookiest location I have ever visited in all my years of stalking – Linda Vista Community Hospital in Boyle Heights.  Because the property is not only a filming location, but has been abandoned for close to two decades now and is largely rumored to be haunted, I figured it would fit in perfectly with my Halloween-themed month.  And the stalking gods must have agreed because a magical thing happened while we were there!  As fate would have it, we happened to run into one of the hospital’s caretakers while we were snapping pictures outside and when he saw my enthusiasm for the place’s vast filming history, he invited us in for a private tour!

P1000668 P1000667

P1000665 P1000666

Linda Vista Community Hospital, which was originally named Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital or Santa Fe Railroad Hospital, was first built in 1904 as a private infirmary for sick and injured employees of the Santa Fe Railroad Line.  The 6-story, 150-bed property, which was expanded several times after its opening, was transformed into a community hospital in 1937, at which point its name was changed to Linda Vista.  Sadly, as the Boyle Heights area fell upon hard times, the hospital suffered and, in 1989, due to a lack of funds and a drop in Medicare reimbursements, the Linda Vista Emergency Room was closed.  Two years later, in 1991, the hospital shuttered its doors altogether.  And that’s when Hollywood came a’knockin’.  Shortly after the closure, Linda Vista’s property manager, Francis Kortekaas, decided to lease the site out to film crews in order to offset its high maintenance costs and he has not looked back since!  Due to its vacancy and aged appearance, location scouts cannot seem to stay away from the place.  The hospital, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, currently plays host to between 100 and 150 productions each and every year!

linda-vista-hospital-1 linda-vista-hospital-9

linda-vista-hospital-5 linda-vista-hospital-11

Linda Vista Community Hospital is also currently home to the Boyle Heights Paranormal Project, a research team that not only conducts intensive investigations of paranormal activity on site, but hosts regular events on the property – including late-night “flashlight tours” and overnight visits in which those stalkers far more brave than myself can actually spend the night inside of the hospital.  Um, I think I’ll pass on that one!  Winking smile It was scary enough just being in that place in the broad daylight!

P1000669

On our tour of Linda Vista Community Hospital, the GC and I were shown most areas of the property, including the hallways;

P1000671

P1000670 P1000672

the front lobby;

P1000673

P1000674 P1000675

the chapel;

P1000676

an examination room;

P1000677

the original morgue, which was dressed for the filming of an Eminem music video that had taken place a few days prior;

P1000678

the original morgue freezer;

P1000681

a room where serial killer Richard Ramirez supposedly camped out before he was caught;

P1000679 P1000682

and the basement area, which was used extensively in the pilot episode of ER and was the area that I had most wanted to see.

P1000680

The basement contains a lobby area, which had been dressed with fake blood for a student film;

P1000685 P1000691

a kitchen/break room;

P1000687 P1000686

P1000689 P1000688

a surgical room;

P1000690 P1000684

and a fake morgue, which was constructed specifically for filming.

P1000683

As you can see above, only one of the morgue freezers actually opens, the rest are fake.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!  And while I have to say that I was scared out of my wits pretty much the entire time, the tour was one of the most exciting experiences of my life.  🙂  You can check out some more interior photographs of Linda Vista Community Hospital here.

[ad]

ScreenShot1894 ScreenShot1895

ScreenShot1897 ScreenShot1893

Linda Vista Community Hospital has been featured in so many productions over the years that it would be virtually impossible for me to chronicle them all here.  But I will do my best to try.  In a flashback scene in the Season 1 episode of Dexter titled “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”, Linda Vista stood in for the Angel of Mercy Hospital where Harry Morgan (aka James Remar) took his son, Dexter (aka Michael C. Hall), to show him where his grandfather worked for thirty years.  Harry and Dexter then posed for a photograph out in front of the hospital.

ScreenShot1898 ScreenShot1899

ScreenShot1901 ScreenShot1900

When the scene then switches back to the present day, Dexter once again heads out to the Angel of Mercy Hospital, which has since been abandoned, where he finds Tony Tucci (aka Brad William Henke) – one of the Ice Truck Killer’s victims – alive, but with a severed right foot.

ScreenShot1902 ScreenShot1903

ScreenShot1904 ScreenShot1905

The next episode of Dexter, titled “Love American Style”, in which the Miami Metro Police Department investigates the torture of Tony Tucci, was also filmed at Linda Vista.

ScreenShot1906

In the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “Dream Sorcerer”, the exterior of Linda Vista stood in for Bay General Hospital where Prue Halliwell (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) recuperated after being in a car accident.

ScreenShot1907 ScreenShot1909

I am not sure, though, if the interior hospital scenes were also filmed at Linda Vista or at a different location.

ScreenShot1910 ScreenShot1911

ScreenShot1914 ScreenShot1916

In the Season 1 episode of FlashForward titled “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Linda Vista stood in for the abandoned Raven River Psychiatric Hospital in Arizona, where Dr. Olivia Benford (aka Sonya Walger) and Agent Shelly Vreede (aka Barry Shabaka Henley) investigated former patient Gabriel McDow (aka James Callis).  When Olivia and Shelly first pull up to the hospital, Olivia says, “It’s like the setting in one of those slasher movies!”  LOL

ScreenShot1918 ScreenShot1919

ScreenShot1922 ScreenShot1925

In the Season 1 episode of Moonlight titled “Arrested Development”, Linda Vista’s fake morgue was used as the morgue of St. John Hospital where Mick St. John (aka Alex O’Loughlin) and Beth Turner (aka Sophia Myles) investigated a Jane Doe who had been killed by a vampire.

ScreenShot1927 ScreenShot1929

ScreenShot1930 ScreenShot1931

Linda Vista’s former asylum building was also used in that episode, as the supposed-Los-Feliz apartment building where Mick and Beth tried to catch Jane Doe’s killer.

linda-vista-hospital-15 linda-vista-hospital-14

The asylum building, which is pictured above, is located just south of the main hospital.

ScreenShot1934 ScreenShot1935

ScreenShot1936 ScreenShot1937

In the second episode of the recently-aired Bachelor Pad 2, Michael Stagliano wins a date in which he takes Erica Rose, Michelle Money, and former-fiancé Holly Durst for an overnight visit to Linda Vista Hospital.  As I said above, I think I’ll pass on that one!

ScreenShot1941 ScreenShot1940

ScreenShot1943 ScreenShot1944

While all of the later episodes of the television series ER were shot on a soundstage at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, as I mentioned above, the pilot, which was titled “24 Hours”, was shot in its entirety at Linda Vista.  And even though I was never a huge fan of ER, I cannot tell you how cool it was to see that area of the hospital!

ScreenShot1951 ScreenShot1953

Linda Vista was one of several different locations used as the exterior of the Honolulu Hospital where Nurse Lt. Evelyn Johnson (aka Kate Beckinsale), Nurse Betty Bayer (aka Jamie King), Nurse Sandra (aka Jennifer Garner), and the rest of the girls worked in Pearl Harbor.

Linda Vista - Pearl Harbor set

A false front was built on the back side of the hospital, in the area denoted with a pink rectangle above, for the filming.

ScreenShot1946 ScreenShot1949

ScreenShot1947 ScreenShot1948

And while the Pearl Harbor interior hospital scenes also supposedly took place at Linda Vista, I did not see any rooms on our tour that even remotely resembled the rooms pictured above.

pearlharbor-hospital

Mike, from MovieShotsLA, happened to be at Linda Vista during the filming of Pearl Harbor and snapped the above photograph while there.  As you can see, there looks to have been some sort of set built in the parking lot area of the hospital and because the window sizes and shapes of that set match up to what appeared onscreen, I am guessing that it is where the interior hospital scenes were filmed.

ScreenShot1954 ScreenShot1955

ScreenShot1956 ScreenShot1957

In 1995’s Outbreak, Linda Vista stood in for the hospital in Cedar Creek, California where the massive outbreak first occurred.

ScreenShot1975 ScreenShot1978

ScreenShot1976 ScreenShot1977

In 1999’s End of Days, Linda Vista was used as the New York hospital where Christine York (aka Robin Tunney) was born.

ScreenShot1979 ScreenShot1981

ScreenShot1982 ScreenShot1984

It was also where Satan (aka Gabriel Byrne) found and killed Thomas Aquinas (aka Derrick O’Connor).

ScreenShot1969 ScreenShot1970

ScreenShot1973 ScreenShot1974

In 1985’s To Live and Die in LA, the hospital, which in a nod to its history was called Santa Fe Hospital, was where prisoner Carl Cody (aka John Turturro) pretended to have a sick relative in order to escape from Secret Service Agent Richard Chance (aka William Peterson).

ScreenShot1961 ScreenShot1960

ScreenShot1962 ScreenShot1963

The 2007 Duran Duran “Falling Down” music video, in which a Britney Spears’ inspired starlet is forced into rehab, was shot at Linda Vista Community Hospital.

Duran Duran “Falling Down” Music Video–Filmed at Linda Vista Hospital

You can watch that video by clicking above.

ScreenShot1964 ScreenShot1965

ScreenShot1966 ScreenShot1967

And the 2005 video for the Garbage song “Bleed Like Me” was also filmed at Linda Vista.

Garbage “Bleed Like Me” Music Video–Filmed at Linda Vista Hospital

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Linda Vista Hospital also supposedly appeared in The Cell, but I scanned through the flick earlier today and could not find it anywhere.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Linda Vista Hospital is located at 601 South St. Louis Street in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.  You can visit the hospital’s official website here.  You can check out the Boyle Heights Paranormal Project’s Facebook page here and you can find out more about their upcoming events and tours here.

The So-Called Houdini Ruins

P1010255

One location that I have wanted to stalk for just about forever now is the so-called Harry Houdini Estate, or Houdini Ruins, located at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue in Laurel Canyon.  I first read about the site five years ago in fave stalking tome Hollywood: The Movie Lover’s Guide, but, for whatever reason, had never made the trip out there to stalk it.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, the Grim Cheaper and I found ourselves in the Laurel Canyon area and decided that, because the locale had long been rumored to be haunted by the ghost of the famous magician, the timing could not have been more perfect to finally stop by.  It was not until after I got home and did some research that I discovered that Houdini had most likely never even set foot on the property, let alone lived there, and therefore had pretty much no reason whatsoever to haunt it.

P1010256 P1010260

P1010259 P1010271

It is not exactly clear how or why the rumor about the Houdini Estate got started.  According to an October 1989 Los Angeles Times article written by Michael Szymanski, the first printed mention of it was in Kenneth Schessler’s 1972 book This is Hollywood.  When Szymanski told Schessler that his information about the Estate had largely been panned, Schessler responded, “I heard about the controversy, but I proved it by finding it in a directory of some sort.  I just can’t remember where.”  Um, OK, I believe you, then!  Winking smile What is known as fact is this: Harry Houdini did reside in the Los Angeles area for a brief period around 1919 while filming two movies for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation/Paramount Pictures.  Where he stayed during that time, though, is anybody’s guess.  Journalist Maurice Zolotow once researched the magician for a Los Angeles Magazine article and said, “Houdini resided in Hollywood for about two years, yet I’ve never been able to discover where he lived.”  Further adding to the mystery and allure of the Laurel Canyon site is the fact that the 40-room Italianate-style mansion which once stood there burned entirely to the ground in 1959.  All that remained after the blaze were some ornate stone staircases, cement walls, and the former servant’s quarters.  The main home was never rebuilt and the ruins of the fire, which came to be known as the “Houdini Ruins” and which you can take a look at here and here, were visible from Laurel Canyon Boulevard for years to come.  As you can see in the above photographs, though, that is, unfortunately, no longer the case.

P1010257 P1010268

P1010258 P1010270

However it began, the Houdini Estate rumor spread even further after the fire and countless websites and books still to this day state that the Laurel Canyon ruins were once a part of the magician’s property, despite many claims to the contrary.  Houdini historian Manny Weltman even went so far as to say, “Houdini never set foot on those grounds, and anyone who says so is lying. If anyone comes up with proof I’ll eat my magic hat.”  When the site went up for sale in 1989, Merrill Lynch hired two different title search companies to research the title, but neither could find any link to Houdini.  Today, the location, which mainly serves as an event venue and is known as “Houdini House”, consists of a 3.9-acre plot of land with landscaped terraces, waterfalls, ponds, hiking trails, meandering pathways, and an Old-Hollywood-style home that sleeps twelve.  One of my friends actually attended a wedding at the estate and said it was an absolutely magical experience.  So, whether Houdini ever set foot on the property or not seems to be entirely irrelevant, as it has somehow managed to generate a mystique all on its own.  Oh, what I would not give to throw a Halloween party there!  Can you imagine how incredibly cool that would be?!?!  And while the Houdini House rental rates are actually quite reasonable, somehow I still don’t think the GC would ever go for it.

[ad]

ScreenShot1880 ScreenShot1881

ScreenShot1883 ScreenShot1885

ScreenShot1887 ScreenShot1888

Someone who did go for it, though, was The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Taylor Armstrong, who in the Season 1 episode titled “It’s My Party and I’ll Spend If I Want To”, famously threw her 4-year-old daughter, Kennedy, a $60,000 Mad-Hatter-themed birthday party at the Houdini Estate.  And no, that was not a typo – the party, which was for a FOUR-YEAR-OLD, actually cost $60,000!!!!!  The spectacle caused fellow Housewife Lisa Vanderpump to ask, “What ever happened to Pin the Tail on the Donkey?”  Love it!

P1010266

The bust of Houdini which was shown in the Housewives episode can just barely be viewed from Laurel Canyon Boulevard and is pictured above, albeit quite blurrily.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The so-called Houdini Ruins are located at 2400 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Laurel Canyon.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, no part of the property is visible from the street, so I cannot really recommend stalking it.  You can visit the Houdini House’s official website here.

Laurie Strode’s House from “Halloween”

P1010561

A couple of months ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, clued me into an INCREDIBLY cool little bit of Haunted Hollywood stalking information that I had not been previously aware of.  Apparently, the real life owners of the home that stood in for the Strode residence in the 1978 classic horror film Halloween are so extremely stalker-friendly that they provide a supply of plastic pumpkins on their front porch all year long for fans of the movie to pose with in photographs.  Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over with excitement upon hearing this news and decided that, even though I had previously stalked the Strode house and blogged about it briefly way back in October of 2008, that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-visit.  So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to South Pasadena to do just that this past weekend.

P1010544

And, sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the home, I spotted an assortment of plastic foam pumpkins sitting on a chair on the property’s front porch, along with a framed sign.

P1010545

That sign reads, “Yes this is the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis from the 1978 Halloween.  You may borrow the pumpkin.  Have a good time.”

P1010546

The sign also includes a still from the movie so that fans can refer to it while posing on the front walkway.  How incredibly cool are these homeowners???  Big, huge, Andre-the-Giant-sized props go out to them for embracing the cinematic history of their residence and allowing stalkers to share in some of the fun.  If I owned a famous movie home, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be doing this same, exact thing.  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!  LOVE IT!

[ad]

ScreenShot1706 ScreenShot1707

ScreenShot1708 ScreenShot1711

The supposed-Haddonfield, Illinois Strode residence was featured several times in Halloween.   It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Laurie Strode (aka Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminded by her father, Morgan Strode (aka Peter Griffith), to drop a key off at the “Meyer’s place”.  According to the fabulous website The Cabinet, that particular scene was the very first of the entire movie to be shot.  And according to IMDB’s Halloween trivia page, director John Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, in what was her very first movie role, as a sort-of nod to Alfred Hitchcock who had cast Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh, in the iconic role of Marion Crane in Psycho.  In another homage to the legendary Hitchcock classic, Carpenter also named the character of Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist “Sam Loomis” after Marion’s lover in Psycho.

ScreenShot1712 ScreenShot1714

ScreenShot1715 ScreenShot1716

The Strode residence next shows up in the scene in which Laurie returns home from school, after having been accidentally scared by Sherriff Leigh Bracken (aka Charles Cyphers).

ScreenShot1721 ScreenShot1722

ScreenShot1723 ScreenShot1725

And finally, it appears in the scene in which Laurie waits, pumpkin in hand, to be picked up by her friend Annie Brackett (aka Nancy Kyes) to go baby-sitting.

ScreenShot1726 P1010547

It is that scene that the homeowners allow you to recreate with their fake pumpkins.  SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

P1010551 P1010554

P1010556 P1010548

Amazingly, the Strode residence looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1978 when Halloween was filmed.  The north-facing side of the house is the area that appeared in the movie.

P1010556 P1010558

For whatever reason, the east-facing side, which is pictured above, was not seen in Halloween.  According to fave website Zillow, in real life the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-occupancy dwelling which features three separate units.

ScreenShot1717 ScreenShot1718

ScreenShot1719 ScreenShot1720

And while I cannot say for certain that the home’s actual interior was used in the filming, I am guessing that it was.

ScreenShot1729 ScreenShot1733

On a very random side-note – while doing some research on Halloween earlier today, I almost fell off my chair upon discovering that Kyle Richards (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whom I loathe more than there are words in the English language to express – I honestly do not think there has ever been a bigger b*tch in the history of reality television, but I digress) had played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl whom Annie babysat, in the 1978 flick.

P1010563 P1010566

P1010567 P1010572

And on a Halloween side-note – as the GC and I were driving away from the Strode residence, we spotted a house that was decorated beyond belief for the upcoming holiday!

P1010568 P1010574

P1010570 P1010575

P1010573 P1010571

As you can see above, the amount of detail that went into the embellishment of the home is utterly incredible!

P1010583 P1010584

I was shocked to discover that the fence which runs along the perimeter of the property and reads “cemetery” above the gate was actually just a prop!  I mean, I, of course, realized the “cemetery” part was decoration, but the entire fence?  WOW!

P1010579

And it was not until I was about to leave that I realized the home’s brick façade was also just a decoration!  As you can see in the above photograph, the entire front of the residence has been wrapped in some sort of plastic covering.  Talk about going all out!!!  If I ever have a house, you better believe that this is what it is going to look like every year come Halloween!  Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Laurie Strode’s house from the original Halloween movie is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena.  The massively-decorated-for-Halloween home that we stumbled upon is located right around the corner at 1130 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.

The Mills View House from “Picket Fences”

P1000782

Well, my fellow stalkers, it is finally that time of year again, the month I look forward to all year long – October!  With it comes fall leaves, cooler temperatures, and my favorite holiday of them all, Halloween.  And you know what that means – I will once again be devoting the entire month of blog posts to locations having to do with Haunted Hollywood!  First up is the Mills View house, a Monrovia-area property that I learned about way back in March from a journalist named Toni Momberger who interviewed me for an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper article she was writing about famous movie homes.  Toni told me that she had toured the huge, Victorian-style abode as part of her research for the article and she was shocked to discover that I had never before heard of the place.  As fate would have it, the house had been featured prominently in not one, but two spooky productions over the years, so I figured it would be the perfect start to my Haunted Hollywood theme and I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it a few weeks back.

P1000787 P1000781

P1000785 P1000784

The 5-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,140-square-foot Mills View house, which was built in 1887 by architects Luther Reed Blair and Uriah Zimmerman, was originally situated on a 5-acre plot of land on what was then the corner of Banana Avenue (now Hillcrest Boulevard) and Melrose Avenue.  The Eastlake-Victorian-style home was commissioned by William N. Monroe, the founder of Monrovia, as a wedding gift for his son, Milton Monroe, and his new bride, Mary Nevada.  Construction on the property began in May of 1887, shortly after Milton and his wife were married, and was completed a mere seven months later.  Sadly, the Monroes divorced a short time after tying the knot and ended up selling their wedding home to Colonel John H. Mills and his wife, Elizabeth Cook Mills, in 1893.  The Mills dubbed their new residence “Mills View” because on a clear day the island of Catalina was supposedly visible from one of the third floor windows.  Unfortunately, Colonel Mills passed away only three months after moving into the home and it went through several ownership changes after Elizabeth subsequently died in 1905.  Mills View, which boasts numerous stained glass windows, a third floor attic, hardwood flooring throughout, and five fireplaces with original tilework, became a Monrovia City Landmark on June 4, 1996.

P1000786

According to this Monrovia Patch article, Mills View has appeared in over 20 productions since 1980 alone. Sadly though, I know of only two – both of which, as I mentioned above, fit the thriller genre.  And the property definitely does give off a spooky vibe in person – I think primarily due to its gargantuan size – so it is not very hard to see why location scouts have flocked to it over the years.

[ad]

ScreenShot1346 ScreenShot1348

ScreenShot1351 ScreenShot1352

In the Season 1 Halloween-themed episode of fave show Picket Fences titled “Remembering Rosemary”, Mills View was where Rosemary Bauer committed suicide ten years prior by jumping out of a third-floor window, and where Sheriff Jimmy Brock (aka Tom Skerritt) and his deputies Maxine Stewart (aka Lauren Holly) and Kenny Lacos (aka Costas Mandylor) returned to investigate the case after deciding to re-open it a few days before Halloween.

ScreenShot1350 ScreenShot1353

ScreenShot1354 ScreenShot1356

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which you can see some photographs of here, was used in the episode.

ScreenShot1357 ScreenShot1360

ScreenShot1359 ScreenShot1367

Mills View was also the primary location used in the 1986 horror flick House.  In the movie, it was the haunted property that mystery-writer Roger Cobb (aka William Katt) inherited from his Aunt Elizabeth (aka Susan French).  According to the House production notes, for the onsite filming, which lasted two weeks, production designer Gregg Fonseca repainted the exterior of the property and  added Victorian gingerbread detailing, a few spires, a wrought-iron fence, and a sidewalk.  At the rear of the residence, he covered up the home’s real life clapboard siding with a fake brick edifice and added some much-needed landscaping.

ScreenShot1362 ScreenShot1363

ScreenShot1364 ScreenShot1365

No filming took place inside of the actual home, though.  For all of the interior scenes, a replica of the house, which included two full stories, a living room, a den, a staircase, and three upstairs bedrooms, was built on a soundstage at Ren Mar Studios in Hollywood.

ScreenShot1373 ScreenShot1370

ScreenShot1369 ScreenShot1371

And I am fairly certain that the pool shown in the movie was either a fake built on the property solely for the filming or that a second location was used, as Mills View does not currently appear to have a pool.

P1000783

Two very lucky British House fans were given a personalized tour of Mills View last year and wrote a great blog post about it which you can check out here.

Halloween1999

On a Halloween side note – I was finally able to dig up a photograph of me dressed up as Agent Dana Scully for Halloween one year during college, which I had mentioned in the blog post I wrote about meeting David Duchovny back in June.  The only picture I could find, though, was not a very good one as my eyes are closed in it.  Ah well.  That is my good friend Alex, who was dressed up a Parrothead, posing with me.

DD doll

While going through boxes at my parents’ new house looking for the Dana Scully picture, I also stumbled upon my Fox Mulder doll, which I could NOT have been more excited about!  I am so going to have to stalk DD again and get him to sign the doll for me.  How incredibly cool would that be??

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: Mills View, from the movie House and the “Remembering Rosemary” episode of Picket Fences, is located at 329 Melrose Avenue in Monrovia.